Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Lemon, Lesbians and Closets

I recently saw a 30 Rock episode (S4 E09) titled “Klaus and Greta” where James Franco guest starred as James Franco-in-love-with-a-b0dy-pillow. But I suppose many of us may also watch it for Tina Fey like I do.  Women who can carry off Nerd glasses are, queerly enough, SO attractive. In this episode, “Lemon” (Fey’s character) has her gay cousin, Randy Lemon ( no really, they named the character “Randy Lemon”, this is 30 Rock ! C’mon!) from small town Pennsylvania come to NYC after a fight with his parents. He insists upon going out and having a good time and giving her a makeover in this time there. The clincher is a scene where they argue and Randy locks her in a closet [ A good wry joke can keep me going for a week ] My apologies to those outside the US who cannot access the video, The scene falls in the latter half of the episode: Look for Randy with Slut written on his forehead -

I also recently watched Dostana – Yes, it has taken me a while but for some strange reason it always said “Long Wait” on my Netflix queue. I was curious about the movie mainly after seeing Tarun Mansukhani ( The Director) on a few of the Post Article 377 debates on Indian News Shows and having encountered positive reviews of the movie about its depiction of gay men. I dunnoooo….There were men. They pretended to be “gay”. Pretended is key to note here. And yes, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant – a nice shiny movie with Yash Raj production values and not too much angst. But it was based on stereotypes. In the sense that whenever the men had to “be gay” they resorted to effeminate behaviour ( not affectionate alone – there is a distinction ), when they were straight while lusting after the girl they were normal ( by the societal yardstick). So yeah, maybe Dostana is a fun movie – maybe it doesn’t represent gay men in negative light but it still offers what the audience wants -  A recognizable impression of the effeminate gay men. The one part of the movie I did thoroughly enjoy though was the song “Maa Da Laadla”, Funny lyrics (try and read the english lyrics if you can), Catchy and Kiron Kher is a delight to watch. Here you go -

[Via http://queercoolie.wordpress.com]

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